The New International Encyclopædia/Auenbrugger, Leopold von

AUENBRUGGER, ou'en-brụg'ẽr, or AUENBRUGG, ou'en-brụg, Leopold von (1722-1809). A Viennese physician who introduced the method of percussion diagnosis — that is, the method of applying the ear to the chest and noting the sounds that follow a stroke of the hand on the patient. He published the results of his important investigation in a treatise entitled Inventum Novum ex Percussione Thoracis Humani Interni Pectoris Morbos Detegendi (1761), which marks an epoch in the modern history of medicine. The book attracted little attention until it was translated and illustrated by Corvisart in 1808. He also wrote two treatises on insanity.